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BREAKING NEWS: Ghyabi + Associates of Ormond Beach merges with Chicago-based engineering giant Benesch

City

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. -- Maryam Ghyabi may be a big fish in a small pond in Central Florida with her Ormond Beach-based transportation planning and engineering firm, where she clearly has been the standard bearer over the years on major projects, but her company has merged with one of the country's engineering giants headquartered in Chicago -- Alfred Benesch & Company.

Sinkhole in Tampa swallows two homes & a boat

Newspaper Section

YouTube download / AP video / A sinkhole that started out the size of a small swimming pool and continued to grow in Florida swallowed a boat, destroyed two homes and prompted officials to evacuate residents from nine other homes on Friday. (July 14)

TAMPA, Fla. --  A sinkhole that officials said earlier on this Friday started out the size of a small swimming pool soon mushroomed, swallowing  one home and a boat and then about 80 percent of another home, said Kevin Guthrie, Pasco County's assistant county administrator for public safety.

By mid-afternoon, the hole stretched up to 250 feet (76 meters) wide and 50 feet (15 meters) deep, and threatened to damage a third home, Guthrie said.

Retired Judge Hubert Grimes new acting president of financially-troubled Bethune-Cookman University

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Retired Circuit Judge Hubert Grimes has been named the acting president of historically-African-American Bethune-Cookman Universiy, whose president has resigned amid controversy over millions in finances.